14 書香人生 B O O K S & R E V I E W S SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2010 • TAIPEI TIMES Hardcover: UK CD Reviews Men behaving badly in the corridors of power Though brimming sexual and other scandals, for a book about British politics, Andrew Rawnsley’s expose doesn’t reveal much about the country Gorillaz Vampire Weekend first made a splash Loscil Plastic Beach on the indie-rock scene in 2008 with Endless Falls Parlophone its eponymous debut, an album that Kranky Records By George Walden inspired very strong opinions, both Bloomberg positive and negative. Fans embraced the band’s playfulness and coyly a UK general election nears, clever lyrics tucked neatly within London newspapers are Publication Notes readily accessible genre-bending British multi-instrumentalist singer- serving up juicy morsels from songs. Detractors bemoaned an songwriter Sophie Madeleine wrote As apparent lack of depth resulting from Love. Life. Ukelele. while working on a scabrous new book on politics. The extracts, from Andrew Rawnsley’s The an overly simple, cutesy approach to her master’s degree in songwriting at End of the Party, brim with men behaving songwriting, feeling the sounds they Bath Spa University. She put the album badly behind the walls of the prime borrowed from the world of Afro-pop up for sale on the Internet last year minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street. to be used in poor taste. with the help of Bandcamp (www. The book describes how former prime Contra, the band’s second album, bandcamp.com), an online digital minister Tony Blair held foul-mouthed sees them running even further music company. This year, Love. shouting matches with his chancellor of down the path laid out on Vampire Life. Ukelele. became the first vinyl the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. And how Weekend. But if you have the stomach release of BCWax, a new “unlabel” Brown, after becoming prime minister, for it, it is quite a treat. The opening from Bandcamp that hopes to provide stalked No. 10 in a black rage, throwing By Taylor Briere track, Horchata, named after a spiced Endless Falls is experimental its customers with something that solid objects as well as injurious words at Contributing Reporter beverage popular in Latin America, electronica solo artist Loscil’s fifth can’t be downloaded: a beautiful, long-suffering aides. Cartoon virtual band Gorillaz is back is driven along by a happy marimba release on the avant-garde label collectible piece of art they can hold in The fact that Rawnsley is a political this month with the release of its third and thumping electronic kick drum Kranky Records, also responsible their hands. The artwork for the vinyl columnist for the left-leaning Observer studio album, Plastic Beach, this time while vocalist Ezra Koenig delivers for releasing music by such acts as release is by Dan Stiles, who has also  The End of the Party: The Rise quirky lines such as “In December worked with the likes of Sonic Youth, makes things worse. Should Labour lose  and Fall of New Labour railing against the hazards of human Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Low the election, the book could prove a sordid excess. As you would expect, the drinking horchata/I’d look psychotic and Deerhunter. Death Cab for Cutie and Feist and epitaph to 13 years in power, which began By Andrew Rawnsley guest stars are of breathtaking number in a balaclava.” It’s shamelessly catchy This is ambient music, so there are who is slated to provide all the future and sets the tone for the rest of the artwork for BCWax releases. with Blair’s landslide victory in 1997. 801 pages and variety. Who else but Gorillaz no catchy chorus hooks to hum along Leftists at the time viewed Blair as would be able to convince Lou Reed, record. The band typically sounds to and no triumphant chord changes Love. Life. Ukelele. is a collection a Christ-like figure sent to banish the Viking Mos Def and The Lebanese National best on its high-energy tracks, but to demand your attention. The album of pleasantly simple pop songs. It satanic era of Margaret Thatcher. Yet he Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music to the album’s last and best track is an begins and ends with the sound of rain won’t blow anyone away with its was never a true man of the left, and his work on the same project? exception. I think UR a Contra is sad, recorded in the musician’s backyard, originality, but it is solid from top to conservative instincts soon showed. the banknotes became a born-again Of course an album this ambitious slow, and spacey, with Koenig singing a fitting bookend for a record as bottom. The instrumentation (often In touchy-feely speeches worthy of Keynesian,” Rawnsley says. is prone to problems, and there are in his sweetest voice atop strings and unobtrusive as this one. Like falling led by a ukelele, though Madeleine Princess Diana, he fretted about the chasm Political junkies will relish this gossipy, times when things simply don’t work. flowery guitar. rain, the music in Endless Falls can also adds guitar, keys, glockenspiel, between rich and poor but did little to entertaining saga. The public will find it The orchestral lead-in to White Flag Keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij is act as soothing background noise, or, melodica, organ and percussion, all close the gap. Nor was he in any hurry less amusing, I suspect. This is a book feels out of place, Snoop Dogg’s also the producer, and he clearly has if given an active listen, a catalyst for played by herself) is eccentric enough to complete the reform of the House of about British politics that, strangely contribution to Welcome to the a talent for laying down unusually endless melancholic musings. to hold your attention, and, most Lords, a risibly dated institution where enough, tells you nothing about Britain. Plastic Beach provides more comic vibrant sounds side by side and At times you may find yourself importantly, Madeleine has the sort of ancient bloodstock continue to lord it over Sexual and other scandals are generously relief than quality work and the track giving them each the space to breathe bobbing your head to beats that barely effortless voice that can carry a cliche humbler citizens. covered, yet mass immigration, which for Broken probably shouldn’t have made in a mix, lending even the more exist, buried deep beneath swirling as far as it needs to go. Like some modish monarch, a tieless good or ill has transformed the country, the final cut. experimental tracks on the record a harmonic drones and intricate, The album won’t make anyone’s and jacketless Blair dispensed decisions gets less than a page. But the songs that are good are comfortable, laid-back feel. The result otherworldly textures. The inclusion Top 10 list this year, but it is definitely from a sofa in No. 10, surrounded by Other social issues scarcely feature. very good. The lead single Stylo relies is an album that feels richly adorned of acoustic instruments such as strings worth a listen if you have a penchant cronies, notably his neurotic press After massive new spending on the on an incredibly propulsive bassline but never cramped. and piano gives the record a more for folky pop music. officer, Alastair Campbell. Meanwhile overstretched health service, deaths to carry the listener through a series organic feel, but I would not go so far the civil service, an ornament of the from the drug-resistant MRSA superbug of vocal performances by 2D (Damon as to say it adds warmth. This is, first British constitution famed for its remain higher and cancer cures lower Albarn), Mos Def and aging soul singer and foremost, a record that puts space neutrality, was downgraded and ignored, than elsewhere in Europe. Expenditure on Bobby Womack, highlighted by 2D’s between itself and its listeners in the Rawnsley shows. education has doubled, yet more parents Beegees-esque delivery of the hook- sincere hope that they will be the Least socialist of all was Blair’s than ever send their children to private line “coming on to the overload,” a ones to bridge the gap with their own religion — or religiosity, as it has been schools. As the rise of the old Etonian reference to world overpopulation. thoughts and experiences. called. It helped Blair to overcome his clique around Conservative leader David On an album characterized by horror at the election of US President Cameron illustrates, social mobility has many special moments, Sweepstakes George W. Bush, inspired a sense of actually gone into reverse under Labour. stands out as the best. The song is mission in the War on Terror, and None of this stopped New Labour left raw in all the right parts and Mos enabled him to say he would answer to from echoing Tory boasts that Britain had Def delivers a fantastic performance, his Maker for the deaths in Iraq. regained its greatness, with London as perfectly framed by the track’s The invasion terminally soured the the center of the world and its financial swelling pandemonium. It is a truly easygoing atmosphere on Downing Street. district, the City, as the country’s original track, a great example of Brown’s un-sunny disposition didn’t turbocharged engine. the magic that can happen when a help, creating “a depressive, introverted, “There’s nothing in the world to rival talented rapper and his producer are Vampire Weekend Sophie Madeleine dysfunctional coterie,” as one No. 10 official it,” crowed New Labour’s architect, Peter on the same page. Contra Life, Love, Ukelele puts it in the book. Brown was seen as a [now Lord] Mandelson. Although Plastic Beach would at XL Recordings Bandcamp/BCWax disaster — a gloomy, nail-biting intellectual And so the national hubris continued. times benefit from less heavy handed and master of emotional malapropisms. The Conservatives had liberated the City’s production, there are simply too many “Enjoy the rest of the summer,” the energies, and Brown had supposedly great songs too ignore this must-listen. book quotes him as saying while waving abolished boom-and-bust economics, goodbye to troops in Afghanistan. inaugurating a golden era of growth. Rawnsley is nonetheless generous Warnings about public spending and on Brown’s role in stabilizing the world personal debt were denounced as economy, as was US President Barack doom-mongering. Obama, who spoke of Brown’s “energy, Seldom has a generation of politicians leadership and initiative.” Never mind if of all persuasions gotten things so the cure meant turning his own principles stunningly and comprehensively wrong. on their head and spending billions of It’s not just New Labour, but an entire era pounds he didn’t possess. of national self-delusion that is crashing “The man who put Adam Smith on and grinding to a close. Softcover: Taiwan From Odessa to Winnipeg, on a boat and off the wagon A motley collection of acrobats, drunks and whores features in ‘Saskatchewan,’ Taiwan-based Canadian author David Barton’s third book

By BRADLEY WINTERTON wastes and due for detoxification his wife and their son, Barton’s by contrast, is a novel, and here their history, albeit in his own in charge of a spiritual world, an Contributing Reporter by a native “sweat lodge grandfather, shortly after their Publication Notes Barton has to decide on the distinctive, anarchic style. evil one in charge of the material David Barton is the Canadian-born ceremony” that involves his lying arrival in Canada from Denmark. distribution of zaniness between “These were people who had one) that had gone underground professor of English at Taiwan’s for days in a tent alongside some The fictional group, though, himself and his characters. That he been born unwanted,” he writes when the Cathars were wiped National Central University who, specially heated boulders. Far after acquiring more members makes his characters unrelentingly in a rare straight-faced moment, out by the Albigensian Crusades as he related in an interview away in Russia, meanwhile, two in the person of some African weird is certain, but what he opts “people for whom marginalization of the 12th and 13th centuries. with Taipei Times on Nov. 25, friends, Walter and JoJo, are musicians, moves from Halifax for as his own authorial tone is was all they had; genetic gypsies Their Anabaptist heirs, 2007, when someone in Jhongli visiting the aged novelist Tolstoy to Quebec, then Ontario, less apparent. who had come this far wandering Barton writes, re-surfaced in had a knife between his ribs in on his estate. Toronto and Winnipeg. Christian Some things are clear, and scavenging to get away from Saskatchewan. a drunken encounter, casually In this startling second Scientists are encountered however. A common general conformity of any kind.” Things Comedy, though, is this thought, “Well then, are you going chapter, that by no means in these cities, and there are image of Canada is of a tolerant, may have quieted down since author’s chosen style, and much to push it in or aren’t you?” presents the great writer as various performances by the fair-minded, sober place with then, but Barton’s collection of of Saskatchewan is farcical in The local artists Barton he’s usually remembered, the acrobats and musicians, usually massive natural resources and acrobats, drunks and whores manner. I didn’t always find it wrote about in Pornography two are urged to carry the in intoxicated circumstances. full of good intentions, but stands for a rebellious, non- funny — the tone is uneven, and of the Emotions represented sage’s pacifist and egalitarian Eventually they encounter the lacking the will to power and conformist history that, as a level- the story at times hard to get to “an extremely alienated and philosophy to Canada, using as unfortunate prime minister, but charisma of its less benign but headed academic, he probably grips with. Excellent chapters violently schizophrenic Taiwan.” emissaries seven Doukhobors, with no very notable results as more colorful southern neighbor. doesn’t want forgotten. stand out, however, notably And in Teaching Inghelish in or “spirit wrestlers,” all called far as the plot goes. The book Barton, though, will obviously For the rest, the St Lawrence the one featuring Tolstoy and Taiwan (reviewed in Taipei Grigory, currently masquerading ends with an evocation of the SASKATCHEWAN have no truck with any of this River is described as “singing the the penultimate one, The Great Times Oct. 28, 2007) he penned as a troupe of acrobats in an Canadian prairies, ending with blandness. same empty, meaningless song Winnipeg Orgy of 1909. Kuan Tang International a brawling assault on the whole Odessa circus. Together with this sentence uttered by a local There’s a great deal of it had always sung” (elsewhere All in all, Barton is a writer TOEFL ethos, written by (in his a group of female tumblers prairie-dweller: “Well, f anybody By David Barton historical knowledge in this it’s referred to as “sucking off the likes of whom Canada has own words) “an uncontrollable, called The Flaming Angels, the ever read this they w’ud ’ave a 191 pages book, much of it obscured by half of Canada”), the future probably never seen. Many laughable risk-taker riding to whole unlikely party embarks heart attack, they’d never get the satirical, Rabelaisian tone. — presumably present-day — Canadians will relish this book, certain destruction.” Now we from Copenhagen on the 10-day better — she thought it was going Among such knowledge is the inhabitants of Saskatchewan are and laugh at its in-jokes. It seems have Saskatchewan, a novel, and voyage to Halifax, Nova Scotia. to be like a luv story, u know fact that in 1909 nine out of 10 seen as “small-minded, envious, strange that it’s being published Barton’s third zany, but by no It’s only from the occasional where the girl gets sick and died, was weird and exhilarating by Winnipeg inhabitants couldn’t conniving, bitter, prejudiced first in Taiwan, and surely the means unintelligent, publication. phrase that we learn that Walter but it’s nothing like that.” And turns, and often both at the same speak either English or French. people,” and, in a fascinating sooner it’s available in the country The story opens in 1909 with in fact stands for Barton’s indeed it isn’t. time, while Pornography of the They were a mixture of Germans, digression, Zoroastrianism is it deals with the better. the Canadian Prime Minister, real-life great-grandfather. What it is like is hard to say. Emotions described the work Scandinavians, Jewish Eastern perceived as having revived in Saskatchewan is available at Sir Wilfred Laurier (a historical The sepia photo on the book’s Of Barton’s two previous books, of prominent but always offbeat Europeans, Chinese and others, 18th century Europe the belief in Caves Books (www.cavesbooks. figure), stranded in the northern cover apparently shows him, Teaching Inghelish in Taiwan Taiwan artists. Saskatchewan, and Barton is anxious to represent a dualistic system (a good God com.tw).